Histagrams Imagine How Historic Moments Might Have Been Shared on Instagram

The idea isn't entirely new. At one point, photographer Allen Murabayashi experimented with re-imagining famous photos as if they had been taken with Instagram to dispel the thought that filters and a square crop often somehow 'improve' a photo.

The website Histagrams is similar, only it takes it a step further and lends a comedic edge to the whole experiment. Site creators Gusto NYC and Gavin Alaoen imagine how historically significant moments might have been shared if the people behind them had had Instagram at their disposal.

Gusto NYC and Alaoen's creations run the gamut between comical, crude and awkward (see the Bill Clinton shot below) by taking the experiment far beyond just the square crop and filters. Their photos come complete with comments and likes that add ironic context to the photograph.

Gusto NYC says the idea came to him while riding the subway a couple of weeks ago, 'Swiping thru Instagram, [I] wondered what it would have been like if it was around 5 years ago, then I thought 10, 20 years ago, but why stop there?'

Why indeed? Here's a look at a few of the Histagrams currently up on the website:

Both he and Alaoen work at MTV, and spend the majority of their day in Photoshop. '[We] like to exercise [our] creative muscles, so we try to do one-off projects such as this every few weeks.' says Gusto. 'I like to think we have a good sense of humor so we try to incorporate that into many of the things we do.'

The purpose of Histagrams is to 'put a lighthearted/comedic spin on history, while also being able to comment on past/current pop-cultural behaviors,' and so Cleopatra has Caesar worried when she Instagrams that she's in the middle of a Terry Richardson shoot, and Isaac Newton posts a pretentious selfie of himself holding THAT apple.

For now Gusto and Alaoen have no specific plans for Histagrams and are just taking it 'one post at a time.' If you want to follow the updates as they come, head over to their website by clicking here.

(via Pleated-Jeans)

Image credits: Images created by Gusto NYC and Gavin Alaoen and used with permission.